So this is a rant. It’s been a while and I’ve been keeping my rantiness to myself, but my patience has come to the end of it’s tether with some French internet companies.
As a new Mum, buying online should be an easy way of getting the things I need, delivered to my new rural address quickly and easily and without needing to trek to nearby large cities like Lyon or Grenoble with Baby Piglet.
Or so I thought.
Since Baby Piglet has arrived I have had no end of bad experiences with various companies and my patience is really wearing thin.
My biggest complaint is with companies such as Oclio and Kiria saying they have items in stock, accepting my money and then once I’ve ordered sending me emails saying that the item won’t be delivered for a few weeks because out of stock. Fast forward a few weeks and still no news.
In fairness, Oclio did eventually deliver albeit 4 weeks after the original advertised delivery date, but as for Kiria they have neither delivered nor refunded me my money (which they told me at the beginning of July they would do within 7 days).
I’m becoming increasingly irate with Kiria as their customer service department is hell to reach (they have several numbers) and emails remain unanswered. Currently they owe me 113 Euros and I’m really beginning to wonder whether I will get to see them again sometime soon. Am I funding a flailing internet business which fails to understand why customer service is important in the online world?
It is apparent to me that they have blatantly failed to understand their target market – new Mum’s wanting to order items hassle free, quickly, online! Babies grow quickly so are likely to soon out grow any item we get for them if we have to wait months on end for it to arrive!
Vertbaudet is another French internet company I have ordered from and I have to say their level of service has been exemplary thus far. Kiria and Oclio should take note. Whilst some items have been out of stock, I have been kept up to date every step of the order and the out of stock items were delivered on the date they told me that they would be. Perfect, what more could I ask for (aside from their online stock being up to date which it seems in France is never the case)?
What got me ranting this morning was waking up to remember that I still need to chase Kiria for my money back and also remembering that I still hadn’t taken delivery of the two bean bags I had ordered from Usineadesign.com at the end of June. Delivery was promised within 15 days and I’ve not had any news yet. Yet another company to chase!
With new Mummy brain, keeping track of these companies incompetence is rattling my cage and annoying me. Making me waste time and seriously getting up my nose.
What good or bad internet shopping experiences have you had lately? Any good website recommendations in France are welcomed :)
I completely sympathize! Even amazon.fr has caused us grief with an order listed as “in stock” that took three and a half months making its way to our apt.
3.5 months! Wow, that’s crazy, you must be really patient – I would have completely lost it! Thankfully I’ve had good experiences so far with Amazon. Fingers crossed my luck continues as I just placed another order with them!
It is easy to say that French companies have no idea what service is. Bad customer service happens in all countries. However, it does seem France has more that it’s fair share. When I order online, I research as much as possible to see what people are saying about the companies I want to order from.
I hope you get your problems sorted out and you get your refund.
Hi Bob, thanks for stopping by.
I completely agree that bad customer service happens in all countries, it just seems as if I’m getting more bad service in France than I have received elsewhere right now. I worked in e-commerce right at the very beginning before the e-krash in 2000 and our business would have died if we treated customers this way.
The research I carried out before ordering gave me the impression that both Kiria and Oclio are considered as “market leaders” in the baby stuff industry here so I was fairly confident in ordering from them. However both have failed to keep their customer informed and now one is even failing to refund me.
I guess part of the reason of me publishing my experiences here is to help others doing their research. Hopefully we’ll get a few suggestions for good companies as well as bad companies.
As a consumer I’m not sure on my next step is now, I guess I’ll try sending a registered letter to their head office informing them that I’ll be taking legal action soon if no refund is forthcoming. Would you have any idea if this is the right way forward for me now?
Thanks :)
Don’t even get me started on bad customer service here in France! I think this is a good project for all of us bloggers here in France. Let’s try to establish a list of internet merchants who provide good service and those that are a pain. It would be an excellent resource. I have only ordered from Amazon.fr (everything worked fine) and Maison Valerie ( I ordered, wasn’t satisified…I should know better than to order a 25 euro vacuum cleaner…sent it back and was promptly refunded). I would order from both again.
Yep, that would be a good idea! I’ve been trying to search online for a site that lists good and bad experiences but haven’t come up with much. Maybe I’m using wrong search terms.
I think your experience wth Maison Valerie sums up how I’d like my experience to be – you purchased something which wasn’t any good and you sent it back and got refunded. End of. I’d be happy with that, just fed up of the constant chasing now.
Sorry you’re having to mess with stuff like this. Overall, I’ve had good experiences.
Try calling your local chambre of commerce and complaining. Maybe you can get someone official to hound them for you.
Good luck.
good idea! I’ve just had an email from Kiria (after bombarding them with emails and calls over the last week) stating that they’ll send me a cheque. Been there before but I guess I’ll give it another 7 days and will then see what la Chambre de Commerce suggest.
It’s a real pain when stuff doesn’t arrive.
I remember ordering from Verbaudet and La Redoute for both my boys and I bought a lot of stuff in Aubert too, but sur place. That was 10-14 years ago though so much must have changed.
I now use Brandalley which works mostly pretty efficiently.
Good luck with the hounding.
I find Aubert really expensive and prefer buying online. Vertbaudet are good, they deliver what they say they will. The delivery guy even took Baby Piglet’s new bed box upstairs for me today, to save me the trouble he said. How kind was that?
I don’t know Brandalley, will have a look, thank’s for the tip!
Use PayPal … you are then protected. I NEVER enter my credit card details into a site anymore (other than amazon) in France.
I am disappointed with Kiria – they did the same to us but we eventually did get the matter resolved, the product delivered with a gift to compensate.
SO annoying. Stick to the companies that you know and trust!
At least there’s hope for me for Kiria :)
I use PayPal as much as possible when there’s the option but I thought I’d be okay on these big sites. Such a shame they fail to deliver.
Usually sticking with the bigger companies is better. Except one time I ordered curtains from La Redoute and they took 3 months to arrive. They must have had to sew them first?….
LOL! Made to order from a mail order company :)
I’ve never ordered from the two you are having issues with… I’ve always found Verbaudet to be good, and also La Redoute and 3 Suisses have always been good. For toys and such I’ve ordered from the FNAC Eveil & Jeux, and Amazon.fr as well with no issues (well things have been late, but I was always informed and no more then about a week I’d say)… It always feels like a gamble ordering from somewhere I’ve never ordered from before though!
Hi Ashley, I completely agree on it feelin like a gamble! I am a big fan of Amazon and Vertbaudet and also La Redoute. Not so much of 3 Suisses as I had a bad experience with some faulty goods. The main thing is all these companies are good at communicating with the customer which gains our trust.
I’ve finally had another email today from Kiria advising they are sending a cheque today… They had sent the same email two days ago so I wonder if it will ever really be sent?
I wasn’t much of an online shopper when in France….deep seated mistrust, I suppose after seeing what they could get up to face to face.
I tried amazon.fr once or twice, but things arrived faster from amazon uk.
If you could get a body of research done on which companies are reliable apart from the inevitable glitches you’d really be doing a service…and don’t worry if someone says your information is ‘just’ anecdotal. The best information is just that!
I love Amazon UK but have been finding recently a lot of stuff I want to order they won’t deliver to France :( I get on well with Amazon.fr and my only complaint would be is that ordering is too simple and too quick to do – so quick I sailed past the delivery address page and ended up getting everything delivered to my old address. Whoops!
I would love to have a place that gives information on good and bad companies, nothing is better than personal experience. Hopefully this post will attract some responses.
OMG I never thought i would see a post about this because i’m a HUGE internet consumer of everything, i even do my grocery shopping online because I hate going into a grocery store. Also, for the bigger part of my professional life, I worked with the public in every possible sector and I have to say that there’s a huge huge customer service problem in France. They are lacking in everything : Their websites are outdated, their customer service are indifferent and their offers are not competitive. Because I shop around a lot for the best deal on a product before I buy it, I now find myself buying things from other countries 50% of the time because even with the shipping fees, they are still less expensive, give you better tracking and sometimes are as fast as French companies. Thus far the only companies that have equaled the same standards as I’m used to are grocery shopping sites. Although some have very poor products ( like Telemarket they are the worse ) overall they are fast, punctual and when you have a problem it’s quickly resolved. This is maybe because they are competing against each other for the market. What I don’t understand is why all the other French companies don’t do the same.
Don’t get me started on sites like Vertbaudet that tell you they have the product in this or that size and when you attempt to buy it it’s not available… I’ve also had service representatives use distasteful language and interrupt me every single time when speaking. In Canada ( the only other place where I worked with customers ), when you have a position that enables you to interact with the public and you therefore are a representative of the company you work for, they often send you to “customer relations” and “how to manage difficult situations” classes to know how to great people, how to listen to the request and even more importantly, how to resolve difficult situations in a calm and collected way.
They have a lot to learn here before they can consider themselves at the same level as other countries when it comes to service.
Hi Sandra, thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and share your experience. I too am a HUGE fan of online shopping and was recently gutted when I discovered no supermarkets deliver to my new house – I was adept at online grocery shopping.
I use internet shopping to make my life easier – that is what it is there for. If I wanted a sing and a dance I’d get in a car and go to a store hence the reason why lately I’ve had enough.
For me, you’ve summed it up perfectly when you mention how in Canada staff get sent on courses. Maybe this training is lacking in France and staff who are often underpaid just cannot be bothered? There’s certainly no pride in customer relations which is a shame as it’s so important to a business model, especially when you cannot see face to face expressions in a “real life” situation.
I’ve never even heard of those companies.
I’m going to open a can of worms here and say that I’m a bit tired of the French bashing. We are here, we chose to be here and if we aren’t happy then we should get the hell out. (ok, that may brand me a hypocrite because I’m not a fan of certain things here – THE METRO – but I’m trying to get away from that. It will make me a far better person – less stabby).
I’m not necessarily saying that French customer service is top dollar. IT IS WHAT IT IS. And I’m going to admit here that I would rather buy a zipper from the US rather than a French company because I don’t want to pay the state institutionalised shipping costs (the shipping costs aren’t the company’s fault). And yes, I’ve been known to buy DVDs from the UK (whole seasons are half the cost with shipping and money conversion than what I’d find here).
BUT…
I have had TERRIBLE customer service in my home country. Do not even try to call a toll free number in Canada unless you’ve got oodles of time on your hands. You want to order anything in Canada, good luck with that. The cool companies are in the States and the exchange rate has always been historically catastrophic for Canadians. Books? OMG. So expensive. Living in Europe and being paid in a currency like the Euro is wonderful to someone who felt deprived of “cool” growing up.
I also MUCH prefer France in terms of customer service: there is no false cheeriness. This is the land of “je vous emmerde” which is yes, a negative and certainly un-customer service sentiment, as long as you keep a smile on your face when speaking to someone over the phone, you will usually get what you want in short order. This is a generality: just like honking a horn in this country will get the car in front of you to drive slower. Patience is key.
FYI: In France, if you know that you have to call a hotline, you probably should call in the morning unless you want your customer service query to be handled in Senegal or Morocco.
It’s all about choices. We have them. We can decide not to use French companies or we can decide to support local businesses. But enough with the bashing: a bit of lousy service from a couple of obscure French businesses does not mean that EVERY company in this country sucks the color out of rainbows.
I would have to agree on everything you say, including the Canadian prices and toll free numbers. Not saying that one is better that the other and I’m the first one to say that if you don’t like it, get out. I didn’t like it so I followed my own advise, I got out, this is why I’m living in France.
I guess what i said came off more offensive that i intended to be, and please don’t imagine that I’m bashing or putting every company in the same pot. I did and still do admire the French grocery shopping companies that I’ve done business with ( all of them ) and consider their level of customer service to be the most excellent I’ve ever had. I do call hotlines in the morning and I’m patient and all of that because i wrote my opinion ( just an opinion btw ) knowing, not assuming, how things are in those companies. I used to BE on the other side of that phone. When I first came to France, I got a job at a company that is the travel agent IT provider for more that 90% of all European countries. It’s huge, expensive and they “sold” their agent’s high quality knowledge and resourcefulness to justify their price tag against less expensive American companies that had just started “invading”, as they said, the market. My first day on the job I was monitored by a supervisor and helped an agent out, I applied the basic customer service know-how that I had been plowed with at the many other jobs I had had in Canada ( I presented myself, listed, recapped, asked if I could do anything more and “closed” the call ) and when the call was over, I asked if the level of information that I had given was good but the supervisor was completely speechless. Not because of anything I had said, but the way I said it. They didn’t have this kind of process, so anything I said just sounded so great to her she completely forgot about the content. This shocked me because I didn’t do anything extraordinary I knew that they were counting on their help center to hold on the their customers so i didn’t understand her attitude and why she was so impressed. Throughout the years what I heard around me, from my colleagues, were attitudes and comments that would have put you in a pretty bad position with your boss from where I came from.
Never said EVERY company sucks here, ever, sorry if it somehow came out sounding that way. But i won’t stand here and say that something’s not off. My husband owns a local business and i still tell him without any problems that answering the phone with a “yeah?” or dry “hello” is not the way to greet his customers.
Hope i don’t come off as bashing anyone, again :)
Hi Sandra, you weren’t bashing anyone as far as I’m concerned, just telling it as you find things to be.
I worked in customer sales in France and my customers adored me as I offered great service. I got loads of repeat business and when I asked them (as I frequently did) for their feedback, one of the most common comments was the service compared to competitors :)
llsand, no worries, I didn’t mean to say you personally were bashing, I just see it a lot (even from the French!) and it makes me tired.
I chose to live here and I’m a bit fed up with either non-French making anti-French comments (it’s so easy right, just look at the no mention of Twitter/FB kerfuffle online) or the French giving me the “googly” WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? look. They don’t understand that I prefer it here. Stop bashing the country (your country) that I chose to live in. Ya know?
LOL: for your husband and his business!
Hi, thanks for your comment and for sharing your experiences. I am sorry if you considered that I was “bashing the French”, this is certainly not the case and not my intention! My husband is French, my daughter half French and I have lived here 14 years, almost for as long as I lived in the UK, so am probably more French than I am English!
Proof of that is in my complaining *winks*. Isn’t complaining a national sport in France?
I too have experienced terrible service in other countries but not as consistently as I have done in France. You may not have heard of the companies I mention, but they are leading French baby companies that advertise in Parent magazines and online parent websites. My complaint is regarding the total lack of disregard they have towards their customers, customers deserve better.
Do a deserve bad service because they are not mainstream companies like Amazon? Do you really think that because they are obscure (in your opinion) I have no right to complain?
As for getting the hell out if I’m not happy I disagree. There are parts of France that I love and parts that I detest – is this a reason for me to go and live somewhere else? I think not. It would be naïve to think that any country is perfect and I’ve been here long enough to appreciate France for what it is.
Thanks again for your comment but I think it’s better to agree to disagree in this case :)
Touché for the national sport. Well spotted! We are very well “intégrer” n’est-ce pas? :-D
And no, you don’t deserve bad service.
When I was pregs, I could never stand those parenting magazines. They always made me second guess myself so I figured I’d rather wing it: Voilà pourquoi I’d never heard of those sites.
And in terms of Getting the Hell out, well, I agree with you: there are definitely things I hate here, but still I much prefer it to my home country. So… I don’t see myself fleeing back to Canada anytime soon.
I’m 100% with you on those parenting mags, they’re dreadful! I was given a load but quickly gave up on them and now go with my instinct :)
I don’t see myself fleeing back to the UK either. A tropical island somewhere maybe oneday but not the UK!
A quick update: my refund FINALLY arrived from Kiria this morning. Nearly a month after I cancelled my order and nearly two months after I initially placed my order. No apology note, just a letter offering me 5% discount if I order something else. As if!
Decathlon have also delivered to me today just two days after placing my order. Very impressed!
Vertbaudet have also delivered on time. Again.
Amazon.fr are trying to get my parcels back from La Poste as I had them shipped to the wrong address. They’ve made the extra effort to help me out and I really appreciate it. Win!
Yes! Yes! Me tooooo!! You are going to love my latest post. Orange France, I hate you!!
I had many bad experiences with Orange as well… Hope they didn’t ruin your holiday.
I’ve been quite happy with La Redoute and 3suisses (for baby and for us), and there’s almost always something on sale (plus at least one, if not both, carry verbaudet stuff, and I saw that you like them). Other than that, my experience with Amazon is good. It’s also worth checking Amazon.co.uk and .de: sometimes it’s so much cheaper for the same item(s) that the extra postage and (in the case of the UK) the exchange rate is more than covered. The only baby-specific site I’ve used is naturabebe, for which my (one order) experience was mostly good, except for one item that never showed, a few weeks later an email view their only form got no answer, but a couple of weeks after that I simply replied to one of their emails (it wasn’t a no-reply) and got an answer, and resolution (a refund) quite quickly.